It's Elementary Time
I'd like to take the opportunity this week to direct you to an outstanding paper by Rima Shore, Ph.D from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. It's called, "The Power of Pow! Wham!: Children, Digital Media & Our Nation's Future." This paper tackles "Three Challenges for the Coming Decade."
One of the refreshing things about the paper and the research that is being carried out by the Center is that it is focusing on Elementary grade students, acknowledging that there has been a deficit in literature and study for this age level.
The 3 challenges put forth in the paper are: 1) The Call for Coherent Research and Development, 2) Rethink Literacy and Learning for the Digital Age, and 3) Advance Digital Equity, Reaching All Children with Today's Most Powerful Learning Tools. While all three challenges have equal importance, the last 2 have particular relevance to classroom teachers.
In "Rethinking Literacy and Learning for the Digital Age," the paper clearly identifies the most important areas for teachers to expand the literacy curriculum in order to prepare students with skills for their futures. They include: Using digital tools effectively and safely; Think critically; Understanding complex systems; Know about other countries and cultures; Participate in collaborative learning communities; Invent, create, and design ---alone and with others; and Find wholeness in a "remix" world.
This expansion is a necessity and is further argued in the 3rd challenge of "Advancing Digital Equity." This equity problem has mostly been articulated as those with the technology and those without, but it goes much farther than that: the paper argues that this also means the discrepancy between students who are having these skills "scaffolded" with support from adults and those that don't. Rather than just allowing students to "have at" the technology, we need to be assisting, coaching, guiding. The amount of technology is not as important as support and input from adults.
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Shore, Ph.D., Rima. "The Power of Pow! Wham!: Children, Digital Media & Our Nation's Future." (2008):